‘I Used to Jump on Tables': Anthony Haden-Guest Talks With Damien Hirst About Sobriety, His New Work and, Yes, Spot Paintings

'When I first painted them it was this brand new thing and I felt immortal in a way. The time was right. We were... changing the rules, nothing could stop us. Now to see us, some of us look really fucking old. Worn.'

DH: Yes! It’s fucking mad. The human eye might not be able to see them. If you go to the microscopic ones you can spend the rest of your life working on something that’s a millimeter across. Fucking nuts! When I’ve done those, I can’t see myself doing any more. I want them to be an endless series, but I want them to be sort of infinite. An endless series is two things. It makes them infinite but it also connects them with my life. I want to imply it rather than do it. So I’m torn all of the time.

AHG: You have said the spot paintings are “happy” work. It’s an interesting word, happy. I remember Ed Moses at one of the Art Basels saying there’s no angst any more!

DH: Yeah.

AHG: Do you think there has been a change in the nature of art in that way?

DH: It’s probably to do with age. I think angst is something you get as you get older. It’s the way human beings are. Like de Kooning. Or like The Beatles. A great example. The way they grew up in public, going from short hair to long hair. And you see them very happy. And then angst comes in, and it gets all dark. But I think there’s real angst, isn’t there? And then there’s art. You don’t get angst in art really. In life, angst gets you down. But in art, it’s uplifting, it’s optimistic. Art makes you look at things you can’t look at because they take you down. You never look at a painting and get depressed. You look at a painting and you see dark things and they make you optimistic. That’s the difference between art and life. It’s not real angst. It’s the representation of angst.

AHG: To what extent do you think of the future? To what extent does anybody think of the future of their work these days? You don’t hear of artists willing to starve because they’ll be in a museum one day.

DH: I’ve always been aware of that. It’s a good way of thinking about it. Art lasts for a long time. You are making art for people that haven’t been born yet. You want to make art about the world today. But you want to make art that will stand up 200 years from now. Art is the greatest vehicle for me to look at the past. And realize that the people in the black-and-white movies were actually human. Because they don’t look human in black-and-white movies. But if you look at paintings, you see that these people had urges and weaknesses and strengths.

AHG: In old photographs everything looks different. But on Facebook people look as if they are going to live forever.

DH: But soon people will be looking at three-dimensional images. You’re looking at a flat photograph and you think, what is this monstrosity?

[A sign for David Hockney’s upcoming show at London’s Royal Academy noted that the work was “made by the artist himself.” This had started up yet another media kerfuffle over the fact that Mr. Hirst, like Koons, the late Donald Judd and a myriad others, is reliant on assistants. This was on Mr. Hirst’s mind.]

DH: I keep getting this thing about painting your own work. You don’t paint the spots and all that shit. I’m doing this other stuff where I’ve got two guys in Italy carving a sculpture out of granite. So I’ve made a plaster, working in the foundry, of two figures. One of them is based on Michelangelo’s Slaves. These two guys are amazing granite carvers and they are working day in, day out, And it’s like two and a half years to make one. And it’s an edition of three. So that’s ten years, with an AP. If I wanted to do it, I would have to go and study for ten years, five years to learn how to carve granite. Fucking hell! If these guys live to be seventy they are going to be able to make twelve of these. And that’s their whole careers. And that’s your whole life gone. So you have to get people.

AHG: Lucas Cranach’s studio was making Lucas Cranachs a hundred years after he died.

DH: Really? I did think about putting Damien Hirst and Sons over the door. And then they can take over. With the art and everything.

DH: I don’t know. There’s two ways of doing it, aren’t there? Henry Moore and Lynn Chadwick said every edition needs to be finished. When I die, that’s it! And anything in progress gets stopped. So I quite like the idea of finishing everything. There’s something pretty good about saying the moment you die, that’s it. But they are still making Giacomettis. Is that what you want? There’s something quite good about thinking you can make things after you are dead. I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.

If this guy would come from almost any other country with his “art” nobody would even say : fuck off…There are many much more talented artists who will never get the chance.This chap is a fraud ( and a boring one too).

[…] 'I Used to Jump on Tables': Anthony Haden-Guest Talks With Damien Hirst About … 0 Posted by on January 13, 2012 at 10:30 am 'I Used to Jump on Tables': Anthony Haden-Guest Talks With Damien Hirst About … Or it's the hole in Ringo's pocket in Yellow Submarine. It means whatever you want it to mean. Or remember Bugs Bunny? Doesn't Bugs Bunny take out a black dot? And puts it on the ground and someone falls right in it? It's always about discovering … Read more on GalleristNY […]

Dear Anthony and Damien, Next time you’re in Rome, check out: Crocifissione di San Pietro, by Caravaggio, 1600-1601, Basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo, Roma. It’s an amazing painting which I never tire of looking at. I’ve visited it many times. Someday I hope to get a chance to see it up very close to study all the excellent painting details.

I like this article and the way, DH, clears up the question of having others do the work according to his stipulations. My personal tastes are such that, I think the dot paintings are the best that this artist has done. They are wonderful. I hope he will arrange to continue the series indefinitively. I like what he says and how he says it, about dancing on tables and getting older.

Most of all, I love this quote, “I went around to see Louise Bourgeois’s house just before she died. I remember looking at the light switches and the wiring. And the crumbling paintwork. And I was suddenly thinking, we are getting older! We don’t want brand-new pristine hygienic surfaces everywhere. Because you want what’ s happening to your body to be happening around you. You feel more comfortable. Maybe. In some way. But then you see old collectors living in sterile houses. And you do! Their bodies are letting the whole thing down. You get out of bed, you can hardly walk. You feel more comfortable, don’t you, if you are aware that it’s not just you who is decaying—your surroundings are decaying as well. So you are part of the whole thing. It’s like the old leather jacket, isn’t it? It’s a nice thing, an old leather jacket.

Shallow article about a moron with a huge promotional machine…Saatchi and Gogosian could make a “star” out of a piece of manure on a street corner…The creature called Hirst has nothing to say apar from gossip, booze and bullshit.

Of course dh is a con Artist. That is his point. The dot man cometh. Not in the same league as AW, the original and best. Of course the true morons of the dh scam are the Arabs and NYC investment bankers who buy his crap. Good luck to the dot man for running such a grand con on all those rich morons. He is to be admired for achieving such high farce with the titans of the money machine.
All hail the dot man! Dot dot dot Boom.